The Arrival
by Huntington's Bride
Summary: Struck down by the Object Rho, Jane Shepard wakes up a world where her life is a game and the friend she knew does not recognize her. Injured and confused, stuck with a woman who thinks herself mad, there's no telling if she will make it back in time to stop the coming War. Non Cannon, follows the universe of my Degeneration Series but can be read as a Stand Alone.
1. Part 1

_AN: I wrote this during a time I experienced some writer's block on Shadow Play. Needless to say, it's been sitting on my computer for almost two years. This is not canon to my story – the events in here will not reflect later in All Creatures – unless of course there are some really interesting developments. I wrote it simply as an experiment. There are a lot of 'OC character gets taken to the ME universe' but I don't think I've ever seen the opposite – where Shepard is taken from her world to this one. This was written as an exploration of character. And as an experiment on – how a vet would treat a human. I should thank Lady L Shardlake for REALLY taking to the idea. If you are curious about the characters portrayed in this, I must recommend that you read my series starting with A Degeneration in Mass from beginning till Chapter 17 of All Creatures Great and Small. I reveal quite a lot of the characters within the first segment that was revealed as part of the plot throughout most of the other stories. So, there are significant spoilers for my work present here. For those who have come from the other stories, I thank you for following me here. _

_HB_

**Part 01 **_- The people who say you are not facing reality actually mean that you are not facing their idea of reality. Reality is__,__ above all else__,__ a variable. With a firm enough commitment, you can sometimes create a reality which did not exist before._

_MARGARET HALSEY,__No Laughing Matter_

**The first flash of lightening took ****out**** the power, but it was the thunder that frightened her.**

Dr Abigail Gable sat up surprised, the tremendous noise echoing overhead as even the windows shuddered in their panes. Pressing her hand against her chest to try and still her madly-beating heart, she looked around the dark office and cursed softly, staring at her dead monitor.

_So much for that brilliant play at minesweeper,_ she thought bitterly and yelped in shock when something pressed itself against her leg. Her dog Tammy, a mild-mannered border collie, whined as she instinctively dropped her hand to sooth her.

Feeling better for the company, Abby smiled as she smoothed over the dog's head then pushed it aside so that she could get up. "Don't worry, lass," she intoned. "I won't let the nasty noise get you. But you'll have to stay here for a moment..." Upright, she felt around for the single crutch that leaned against the table and used it to stabilize her precarious balance. When Tammy pressed herself against her leg again, the vet pushed her away firmly.

"Stay," she said. "I don't need to be falling over you." The dog whined, but obeyed grudgingly. Her eyes were beginning to get used to the dark and she saw the dog's dark shape lie down on the floor.

"Good girl," Abby whispered. "Mum's just going to have a look at the box. Or get the bloody generator going... Or something." It made her feel better, speaking to herself in the dark. She hadn't started the generator in years because normally there were four other people quite willing to leap in and do the job. Feeling her way through the darkness, using her crutch to push anything out of the way, Abby cursed herself for staying around the practice so late. She should've gone home hours ago, but had hung around to utilise the faster internet connection. Then she had started playing minesweeper and time just... flew.

She went out of the back door, taking a flashlight that hung from the coat rack. When she tried to turn it on, she found that the batteries had died. Thinking it a little strange, because normally the batteries were checked quite regularly, Abby muttered under her breath and reached for another instead. It was a wretched little LED light in her opinion, but it worked on stored energy so she could just turn a handle and have it work. A shiver passed through her as the light finally leapt to life and Abby looked around in the dark, trying to feel whether anything was out of place. Unable to pinpoint anything or justify the sense of unease that had crept over her, she pushed open the back door and went outside in the rain to where they kept the small generator. Normally they only used it for emergencies, but she felt under no obligation to struggle locking up the clinic and determining whether everything was alright on her own, in the dark.

"Have the bloody thing for a reason," she muttered to herself, happy to hear the sound of her own voice. "Might as well put our pounds to work." _And mine._

It was raining cats and dogs, something that troubled her a little. Couple of years ago, her little town had had to deal with severe flooding and the threat of it was ever looming. Still, a little bit of heavy rain wasn't bad. It just had to stop at some point. Reaching the generator, Abby took a full minute to stare at it. It was hard work at the best of times to get it started and she had to overcome another hurdle.

Dr Abigail Gable suffered from Huntington's Disease, a crippling genetic affliction that was basically destroying her neurological function. Her balance and motor skills were ever decreasing, making life more and more challenging. For the past six months, she'd had to use a crutch to help with walking around and keeping her balance. She continued working, refusing to let her disability best her. But life was becoming more difficult and she found that she was beginning to rely more on other people's assistance than they used to rely on hers. It had a bitter edge to it, she was reliant on her hands for work. She kept telling everybody that she could still do what she needed to do and the medications she was taking was certainly helping, but she knew at some point in the not so distant future, the world was going to call her bluff.

The generator was certainly going to.

It felt like ages before she finally felt it jar to life, her hands and arms trembling from the effort she had exerted to pull the chain. She should've given up, but getting it started had become a matter of pride. Soaked now and miserable, Abby numbly pulled the crutch closer and turned around to go back into the now brightly-lit practice when a figure materialised out of the darkness and stumbled onto her.

Abby cried out from shock. Any god-fearing person who had heard stories of bogey men would've. Yet, as the figure fell forward onto her, she reached out instinctively to try and help, the weight of the person knocking over her terrible balance and bearing her to the ground as she desperately tried to catch a hold of the person's clothes.

The figure grunted as they hit the ground together and, for a few panicked seconds, Abby was pinned. She tried to push the person away who finally moved slightly and shifted their weight away from her. Against the light of the back door's porch Abby could not make out who it was, but the stranger certainly recognized her.

"Abby," the person breathed. "Abby, what's going on?" It was a woman.

Blinking, wondering if it was one of her clients, Abby tried to manoeuvre herself out from underneath the woman.

"You tell me," she breathed. "Can you get up? We have to get up." It felt like a silly thing to say, but the truth was that there wasn't much Abby could do while lying on her back in the rain-soaked ground. She felt the icy water press through her clothes. The person hadn't moved yet, but when Abby reached out and pressed against her shoulder, she blinked. For a moment, Abby thought it looked as if the woman was going to try and get up, but then her balance shifted and she began to fall forward. Panicking, realizing that she wouldn't be able to get her inside on her own, Abby made her voice sharper.

"Come on!" she snapped and pressed against the woman again. "You have to get yourself inside. We'll see what's wrong there. But you _have_ to get up. I can't carry you." Millions of scenarios flashed through her mind. Had this woman been in an accident? Was she assaulted? Crazy? What was she doing here?

With what was obviously a Herculean effort, the woman pushed herself away from Abby, rose to her feet and stood there, blinking in the rain. Abby grabbed her crutch where it had fallen and scrambled up, just in time to steady the woman as she pitched forward precariously. The vet quickly positioned herself under slightly taller woman's shoulder and walked her to the back door, her whole body trembling from the effort. She smelt... something off. Like something charred. The woman managed to make it through the door before her knees gave way again and she fell to the ground. Abby managed to provide some buffer, easing the woman against the wall where she sprawled, breathing quickly with her eyes closed.

Abby had no choice, but to kneel next to her, her knees shaking from the effort of getting them inside. Wild panic build up inside her as she quickly assessed the woman's condition, taking in her pale pallor, the blood on her face and the already spreading pool of blood forming where the woman's arm was resting on the floor. For a split second, she had no idea what to do. Then, through the fog of panic, she felt her training kicking in. She started to see the woman more as a patient with a set of problems and injuries and less as an individual. It was a method that she had taught herself to deal with situations like this, regardless of the shape that her patients took. Even when she was faced with bizarre injuries, she had to be the one to stay calm and handle a situation. Other people had the luxury of panic.

She didn't.

She was the one who had to fix things, to preserve life.

_Even though I can't fix myself._

The head injury drew her eyes first, but she could quickly see it was more due to seepage than active bleeding. She reached out to touch it then stopped herself, her mind kicking in. Bleeding. Blood. Human blood... _Shit AIDS!_Her mind flashed. Normally it was of no consequence if she got covered in blood, but this time was different.

"I'll be right back," she whispered as she pushed herself up and rushed to the consult room, not even bothering to grab her crutch this time. She grabbed two pairs of gloves, one pair of powdered latex examination gloves..._For me._ And a pair of packed sterile unpowdered gloves. _For the patient, double gloving will serve us both._ She grabbed her stethoscope off of the table where she had left it at her last consult. Cinema always portrayed vets and doctors walking around with it slung around their necks, but she rarely bothered. It made her feel pretentious and it was awkward. She hastened back to her patient.

_So, it's already my patient__,__ is it?_ She found herself thinking as she reached the woman again.

"Don't bloody well see anybody else around." The last she said out loud just as it dawned on her that she should probably dial for help. _It's okay, I'll just stabilize and then get help. No use her bleeding to death on my floor. The paperwork would be terrible._

Feeling a little mad, she stifled a bitter laugh and knelt down next to the woman again. The woman didn't stir and Abby began to fear that she had lost consciousness. Again she felt the edges of panic touch her as she floundered to imagine where to begin on a human, but then she remembered her ABCs. The notes appeared in her mind as they had when she was still studying.

_Trauma patient – ABC._

_A = Airways, check if the patient is still breathing._ The woman was breathing fast and shallowly, but the rhythm was normal, meaning that the chances were highly unlikely that she had a problem with her diaphragm. In theory, the thoracic cavity should be intact so she could move to the next point.

_Next. B= Bleeding. Active arterial squirts or gushing venous blood. Everything else can wait._ At first, she turned to the head wound, but it had already stopped bleeding. She quickly scanned the rest of her person, touching her chest to find a strange type of Kevlar like vest strapped to her chest. _Police?_ She thought and tried to remember all her clients who served in the force. There were signs of impact on the vest, but it seemed to have protected her from the most damage. Abby's gaze touched the bleeding arm, but it didn't appear to be the gush of a severed artery. Mentally, she moved to C.

_C = __Cardiovascular__ system_. Abby fumbled to remove the woman's vest, her fingers dumbly looking for clasps of any kind with which to release it. Rushed, her hands had started trembling and when she finally found some sort of release mechanism she had to relax and force herself to focus so that her fingers would work. She could only partly undo it as it appeared to be in two parts. One that was strapped over her chest and the other that provided protection to her shoulders, arms and back. She took off the front and let it fall to the floor. It was when she looked down that she saw the wound that was responsible for the charred smell that she had detected. Her patient had a severe burn on her leg, third degree by her quick assessment. Abby grimaced, but knew that there was very little she could do for it now. She took up her stethoscope and quickly fumbled to listen to the woman's heart. It took her a moment of awkward shifting to find its exact location and felt silly afterwards because she had struggled so much. _You're human, she's human, just imagine where your heart would be fool..._The beat was even and steady, but louder that Abby would have liked. Plus the woman was very pale.

Before she could move again Abby shuddered, an involuntary movement associated with her Huntington's that felt as if trembled every muscle in her body. _She's hypovolemic and going into shock, _she forced herself to think as she waited for the sensation to pass._ Must get her warm, must get a drip going. Great how? Most of my patients I just carry them to where I want them or get somebody else to... Moving quickly to D_.

_D = Damaged brain _– patient was definitively unconscious, having not moved since Abby started checking on her. Opening an eyelid Abby shone a small penlight that she carried in her coat pocket into the woman's eyes to check pupil dilation. She knew that an uneven response would mean a concussion… The woman jerked suddenly and pulled away from her, clearly struggling back to consciousness as her hand groped for something at her hip. _A gun!_ Abby saw the weapon and reacted with speed she didn't know she still possessed.

"Easy," she said quickly, putting her hand on the woman's wrist. "It's okay. Please… Please don't shoot me." _She never had to deal with THIS kind of threat._

The woman's gaze seemed to come into focus as she looked up at her, blinking groggily. "Abby," she whispered again, the familiarity in her tone chilling the vet as she once again struggled to remember the woman. She _did _look familiar, but she couldn't place the woman's features. "What happened? Where's Kenson?"

She couldn't stop her body from jerking again, her hand shaking on her grip on the woman's wrist, the gun frightening her more than anything else. "I don't know," she breathed. "Were you attacked? Are they still out there? If you were…" _How do you talk to someone that you're treating?_ She realized that the door was still open and if this woman had been assaulted, the assailant might still be outside. Letting go of the gun, _trusting _that the woman wouldn't shoot her, she pushed herself up and almost fell down as her balance turned. She reached for the door and closed it hard, the noise loud over the rain outside. The sound brought Tammy out of the office and the retired sheepdog made a warning sound in the back of her throat. It wasn't aggressive, but merely a way of getting Abby's attention. Kneeling beside the woman again after she locked the door, glad to see that her eyes were still open, Abby glanced back at her dog and said sternly. "Tammy down!"

The dog obeyed, but kept her gaze on them, her whole body poised and ready to receive any command Abby might give her. The animal's company gave her strength as she turned back to her patient.

"Can you get up? You need urgent treatment, but I can't do much on the floor. If I help you, do you think you could make it to that table?" She gestured to the largest examination table in the nearby consulting room.

The woman didn't reply immediately, but stared into space, her eyes dully focusing on the dog. Abby took the time to carefully try and pull the gun from her hand, but the woman held onto it, her knuckles white as she increased her grip. Abby considered applying more force, but decided that it might trigger an accident she would rather avoid. _She seems docile enough..._

She was about to try and get the woman's attention again when her patient grunted and, with every ounce of strength that she had, pushed herself up. Abby scrambled to meet her halfway, grabbing her crutch as she did so and using it to steady herself as she once again took the woman's weight onto her.

"What happened on the base?" The woman asked her voice dry. _She's going into shock._ "Where are the others? Where are we?"

_There were others?!_ Abby was very glad now that she locked the door. "Doesn't matter," she said. "We have to sort you out first." They reached the table and with what proved to be the woman's final effort Abby managed to help her onto it and let her lie down. She was too tall for it, her legs dangling over the side from her knees down. Abby looked at the problem for a moment and quickly left the room to push another table in for the woman's legs. It made her space very limited, but it suited her purpose. The woman had gone quiet again and Abby was pretty sure she had lost consciousness.

Out of breath and trembling, Abby quickly grabbed a sealed bag of Ringer's Lactate drip and quickly primed it, hanging the bag on a chain from the roof. She instinctively reached for the intravenous catheters, but hesitated suddenly, wondering if the Jelcos they had were suited for humans. She looked at the unconscious woman and then came to a decision.

"Well," she said to no one in particular, "Jelcos are what we have. I'm a vet, we can't afford state of the art equipment. If you object, I'll muzzle you." The thought made her chuckle, but she didn't miss the edge of hysteria that shadowed it. She took a quick breath, then licked her lips as she looked at the stationary woman. "Ok, where do I put it?" she whispered under her breath. Usually she would use the cephalic vein in small animals like cats or dogs, or the jugular vein for really large animals like cattle or sheep, but humans well… She pushed up the woman's coat sleeve of her uninjured arm and searched for an easy vein. Abby found it to be much easier than she thought it would be, but then again she figured that if you could put a drip in a 6 week old kitten you could do just about anything. She opened the line flat out at shock rate and saw Tammy coming closer out of the corner of her eye. If she had still had been a working dog, Abby had no doubt the collie would've still be lying where she was, but in the two years she'd had her, the vet had become lax with a lot of the training. The bitch was retired, done in early by an accident that left her with a broken hip. The farmer had wanted to kill her, but Abby couldn't do it and had fixed the dog on her own account, adopting her and taking her home. She hadn't wanted pets before that, never sure when the Huntington's disease would force her to make radical decisions, but she figured that a broken dog wouldn't mind a broken owner.

"Good dog," she murmured as Tammy again pressed herself against her legs. "Corner." She didn't want the animal contaminating anything or tripping her up as she worked. Tammy obeyed, moving to the furthest corner and laying down, staring at her. In an inspired moment, Abby remembered how farmers used these dogs to watch a herd that they were working with, using the dogs to be alert for any sheep that might decide to break away from the group. "Watch, Tammy," she said, the collie's ears picking up. "Watch." _For anything._

Abby turned her attention back to her patient, moving to the opposite hand so that she could look at what was causing the bleeding there. Something struck her as odd about the woman's clothes, especially the tight woven vest around her arm. Abby struggled to see where the damage came from, eventually deciding to try and cut everything off. It was tough going and when she finally managed to dislodge the tightly woven fabric the wound pulled open. Her blood run cold suddenly when a fresh set of blood pour from a laceration that ran longitudinally from the inside aspect of the woman's for arm, starting a hand berth from the elbow and terminating just before the wrist.

_What the hell would make a wound like this?_ She thought horrified as she looked at the exposed bone she caught a brief glimpse of before the wound welled up with blood. _Great, absolutely fucking fantastic. Return to B._

She grabbed a surgical pack from the shelf and quickly opened it, using the gauze swabs to try and stanch the bleeding. Reaching for the forceps and artery-clamp, she removed the swabs and explored the wound to try and find the bleeder. Relief washed through her as she spotted the tell-tale pulsing of a severed artery. Fortunately, a small one. _Probably one of the many branches of the radial artery…_

"Who cares what it's called," she hissed at herself. "Just fix it." Deftly clamping the bleeder, she dabbed with a swab to look for more. There was a lot of seepage and oozing from the cut muscles, but she didn't see any more active bleeders. She reached for a sterile packet of catgut suture material, but hesitated. Normally, for a procedure like this she'd be scrubbed up and sterile, with everything she needed handed to her by a nurse. What's more, she hadn't actually done anything like this in well over a month, not trusting her own motor skills to do such delicate work. She had been doing more consultations, the 'pet the dog and sooth the owner', kind of work. Her partner did most of the interesting stuff… What if she did something wrong? She needed someone…

But, the woman needed her.

"Screw it," she muttered and opened up the packet, weighing the risks of not scrubbing up to leaving an active bleeder as she did. She used the clamp as guide, breathing slowly as she focused on every single muscle in her fingers. She carefully tied a single throw surgeons knot over the artery and gingerly removed the clamp. She was ridiculously proud of herself when the knot was good and the bleeding stopped.

"Take that, McDreamy," she whispered to the make believe character of Gray's Anatomy. "Not so different from any other wound." She hesitated and chuckled bitterly as she reached for a crepe bandage. "Though my other patients aren't normally worried whether or not they'll be able to write again afterwards." She sighed and looked at the woman's face. "It should hold till a real surgeon can look at you. I'm sorry I can't do the rest." She didn't know why she said it, but it felt right. She started to bandage it when the woman opened her eyes suddenly and whispered.

"Do what you have to do, Abby."

She was so startled by the voice that she froze and stared at the woman. "I'm…" She swallowed. "I'm… I'm sorry but I can't continue. I'm a vet you see and…"

The woman frowned slightly and tried to sit up. "I know," she said and failed, remaining on the table instead. "But if Miranda or Chakwas isn't here…"

Abby frowned and carefully continued to bandage the arm. "Who?"

The woman looked at her as if she had gone mad. "Miranda," she pointed out. "Abby, where is everybody? What are you doing here?"

The vet remembered the gun again and had to stop herself from taking a step back. "It's just me," she said, not looking at the woman. "My name is Dr Abigail Gable, I'm a vet here. You're at me practice."

The woman blinked. "Abby," she said, her voice stronger. "I know who you are. I know what you are. Where…" Her eyes widened. "Where's Kenson? The people who attacked me? What's happening?"

This time Abby did take a step back, frightened by the sudden intensity in the woman's gaze. _Ah, adrenaline was a wonderful thing…_ "Look," she said, using a tone of voice she'd normally use on a frightened animal. "I don't know who else is out there. You… You just appeared at my practice. I don't know what happened. If people attacked you..." _I wonder what I can use to sedate her?_ The thought came up unbidden.

The woman, who had the most intense green eyes Abby had ever seen, stared at her, seemingly assessing her with the same clinical detachment that she had used on her before. The old panic and fear that she had felt slowly crept back and she could tell from the way Tammy shifted in her corner that her dog was picking up on it to.

"Ma'am," she said again. "I don't… I don't know who you are. You look familiar but… But I'm not a people person." It felt like an admittance of guilt rather than a statement. "I can't remember if I've ever met you." She felt herself sway and steadied herself with her crutch again, wondering where she had put her mobile phone. She hated technology.

The woman seemed to pick up on her unease, because she settled down a little, her gaze losing some of its intensity as her voice dropped to a calmer tone. "Abby," she said slowly. "My name is Commander Jane Shepard. I am from the Normandy. Where you were the last time I saw you." The lower tone of voice seemed to carry even more weight than her stern one had and it took a full minute for Abby to realize what she had said.

"Shepard?" She queried. "Commander Shepard? The Normandy?" The puzzle pieces fell into place. "From the game?" Fury was next. "Is this a damn joke?!"

To her credit, the woman never flinched when Abby raised her voice. Instead, she settled back tiredly and looked around the room, her green eyes taking in the drip that hung above her head, the clock against the wall and even Tammy who lay in the corner, watching them with alert eyes.

"Dr Gable," again that familiarity. "What's the date and have you ever been to the Normandy?"

Abby struggled with herself, caught between the wish to understand what she was hearing and running to her office to call the police. "18 November 2011," she said and added sarcastically. "Planet Earth. Wales. Where the hell do you come from?"

The supposed commander didn't answer, but continued to stare at her. When she didn't reply, Abby took a step back, taking off her gloves and completely forgetting about not coming in contact with any of the woman's blood. "I'm going to call an ambulance," she said. "Don't get up. Stay." She turned her back on the woman and went to the door when a strangely foreign, but familiar sound made her stop. It was like a metallic sliding sound, as if a small machine had just powered up and slid into place.

"Abby," she did not miss the regret in the other woman's voice. "Turn around and come back."

A part of her knew what she was going to find when she turned around, but her heart still stopped when she saw the gun in the woman's uninjured hand. She didn't seem to have the strength to hold it in the air. Still, she managed to rest it on her hip, keeping it steady as she trained it on Abby. The vet blinked and unable to help herself, realized that there were tears trailing down her cheeks.

"Abby," the woman calling herself Jane Shepard said again. "Please come back here and finish what you've started. Please."

Abby could not tear her eyes away from the gun. "Please don't hurt me," she whispered. "And my dog. Please." Tammy had stood up and was growling softly. "I… Tammy, down. Please." The dog didn't obey and she had to steel herself and harden her voice. "Tammy, down! Corner!" The dog, bless her, obeyed.

Turning her attention back to the woman, Abby took a slow step back to the bed. Her hands were trembling and she could barely keep her balance even with the aid of the crutch.

"Please," she whispered again. "I am a vet. I am sick. I… I can't help you. I don't know what you want… but I can't help you."

"Abby…" The woman hesitated and steeled her voice. "Dr Gable, please. I need you to relax and deal with this hand of mine." She hesitated. "Do you really not know who I am?"

Abby swallowed and carefully made her way to the wash basin, to wash her hands as thoroughly as she could, leaving her crutch against the wall. In her mind, she imagined herself doing all sorts of things, ranging from dashing out of the door to beating the woman down with her crutch. None was viable. She wasn't that mobile or strong. _Should've put a damned alarm in but NO, we live in a quiet town._

"I know who Commander Shepard is," she said quietly, taking note of the tremor on her hands. Can't stitch with that. Maybe stall? Dope her? "It's a character. In a game. The trailer's on me computer, I can show you."

"What do you mean?" The woman's voice was steady, never wavering. Abby turned to look at her and wondered with what kind of crazy person she was dealing. Again, she was struck by the weight in the woman's gaze, by absolute calm that lay in those emerald orbs. She was playing a very good role, Abby thought. She had the red hair and everything. Even the voice.

"Commander Shepard is a character in a game," she said again. "One I've been playing." She hesitated and found herself blushing under the woman's gaze. "I know I'm too old for such things but it's... therapeutic." She went to the cabinet and got herself two pairs of gloves again. She knew suddenly what she wanted to do and reached for a sedative. Valium would sedate the woman, but zylazine also has an analgesic effect which would definitely come in handy. She glanced at the vial of ketamine, but dismissed it almost immediately as she didn't like the effect it had on some patients. And, she didn't know what effect zylazine would have on people... She reached for the vial of valium, but was interrupted when the woman shifted the gun.

"No drugs," she said, her voice still steady. "You can fix it as it is."

Abby had to gape at her. "Are you mad?" she queried. "It's... It's going to be excruciating. And I'm a vet. I... I have..."

"Huntington's disease," The woman claiming to be Commander Shepard said. "I know Abby. You can do this. I won't move, or make a sound. You know that what Miranda did to me... Numbed a lot of things."

Abby stared at her. "You're on drugs, aren't you?" To her surprise, the commander smiled.

"I beginning to think I am, yes."

Abby shivered and it had nothing to do with the gun that was being held on her or her disease. The certainty of the woman's eyes were electric, her presence undeniable. For a moment, she could almost believe that this woman was Commander Jane Shepard, the space heroine who had to defend earth from a sentient race of machines who was held bend on destroying all organic life. In the game, she had stepped with her into battle many times, had made choices as her. She could imagine that Shepard would look like this if she was ever to appear in real life... She closed her eyes quickly and swallowed, moving back to the woman's injured side and carefully undid the bandages again. She tried very hard not to look at the woman's gun.

_If it was real,_ she thought suddenly. _This woman wasn't real, so why would her guns be?_

"Are you willing to risk it?"

She startled out of her thoughts and stared at the woman who was smiling at her. "I know you, Abigail Gable," the woman said with just the slightest hint of amusement. "And I can see your planning something."

She had the grace to blush, then immediately admonished herself. "Look," she said again, hoping that she could reason with her. "I'm not a doctor. I'm not a surgeon and for the past couple of months, I've let my partner do surgeries such as this. I can... I can destroy your hand. Please, just let me call a real doctor, let them do this." The moment she said real doctor she admonished herself. _Real_ doctors always claimed that vets held no hold to the title and to be perfectly honest, in some ways they were right. Vets didn't hold people's lives in their hands. Yet, it still galled her that she admitted it. Her work was just as important and the truth was that Abby knew a _real_ doctor would never be able to do what she did every day, working with patients who could not tell her what was wrong or being put in situations that they could never anticipate. They weren't trained to do so, but she was. With the bandage off, she resisted the urge to rub her brow and rather went to mentally listing what she would need. The wound looked just as bad as it had when she closed it up mere minutes ago, but she was proud to see that her arterial stitching still held.

_Maybe I can do this._

"There we go," her patient whispered softly. "Thank you, Abby."

Startled out of her thoughts, Abby looked up and frowned at the woman. "I didn't say anything."

That knowing smile was back on the woman's features, as if she could see so much more than Abby wanted her to. "No," she admitted. "But I could see... I could see your decision to do this. And your hands are trembling less. You're calming down." The gun shifted and suddenly, Abby felt her temper stir.

"Well, I'd be calmer if you put that bloody gun away!" she snapped. "I'll do your surgery, but for fuck's sake, put that down. And if you pull out your drip line, you're damn well putting it back in yourself." A wild thought came up suddenly. What if this woman did shoot her? What would she lose? Her body was nothing more than a carcass anyway. It would stop her from needing to make any sort of decisions about her future...

If the woman was surprised by her show of temper, she didn't show it. What's more, she actually seemed amused by it, something that made Abby even angrier.

"Piece or weapon," she pointed out. "Only civilians talk about it as a gun."

Abby snorted and began preparing the arm. "If it hasn't escaped your notice, I am a civilian." She waited to see whether _Shepard_ would put the gun away, but the woman never let it move an inch. _Damn her._

"Last call for any medication," Abby said, taking a steadying breath as she looked at the disarray of human tissue. "Please let me give you something. The wound is deep and if whatever made it penetrated the bone you'll run a real risk of getting a bone infection, or osteomyelitis and that's very grave. Very serious. Not only would it require extensive _professional_ surgery in the future, but you can actually lose your arm." When the woman didn't say anything Abby found herself leaning forward, pointing her finger accusingly at the wound. "This is a serious wound! If you don't want anything for the pain fine, but if you want me to treat you, you have to do as I tell you in one matter at least. I have to give you some antibiotics."

She felt her patient's gaze on her and resolved to firmly stand her ground. She saw her swallow and finally, something in her eyes told Abby that she gave in. She found herself breathing a sigh of relief and reminded herself that the woman wasn't fully stabilized yet. _When I deal with this arm, I'm going to have to look at other injuries, maybe take some x-rays..._

"Good," Abby breathed as Jane nodded slowly. "Now, seriously – are you on any medication at the moment? Anything? The last thing I need is some aberrant drug interactions."

The red headed woman shook her head quietly, still watching her as she carefully moved to the cabinet where they kept some of their medication. Her hands were shaking as she picked up some intravenous penicillin and she had to hold onto the bottle very tightly as she made her way back to the table.

"Show me," her patient whispered, her voice drier than it had been. It worried Abby and she began to wonder if she should start a second IV line. _Internal bleeding? Please god no..._

She held the bottle up and hoped that this Jane got a good look at how much her hands were suddenly shaking. "See, good old fashioned penicillin thanks to good ol'Flemming," she drew up some medication and almost stabbed herself with the needle as her hands shook when she took the line. "If this is the sort of nonsense human doctors have to deal with, I'm very glad that I'm a vet. At least my patients can't refuse treatment." She gave Jane a dark look. "Or insist on it."

"You'll do fine," the patient said. "And while you're busy, I'm going to tell you a story."

"My patients don't normally talk," Abby snapped, but the woman ignored her. Her green eyes were fixed, not on her arm, but on Abby's face. The vet in turn lifted up her injured arm and placed a towel and some drapes under it.

"Two or so months ago," the self-proclaimed Jane Shepard began as Abby carefully started cleaning the wound with some saline. "My crew and I answered a distress call on a planet called Banrio. Mercenaries had attacked it, destroying a turian base. There we learned that they had kidnapped a woman, _you_ from the planet after you associated with an ardat yakshi called Asura Dushkriti." She paused, as if waiting to see whether the name meant anything to her, but it didn't. Abby merely stepped away, her body shuddering involuntarily. When she was sure the tremor passed, she dried the woman's arm thoroughly with gauze swabs and removed the towel and drapes, replacing them with dry ones from a sterile wound pack. Her hands were steadier now, but still not ideal. "We saved you, took you in to help us track down this ardat yakshi." Abby frowned at the name remembering that it was aliens suffering from a kind of genetic disease that made them unable to have sex with anybody without killing them. She blushed suddenly and hid it by limping to the washbasin again after she opened up another pair of sterile gloves and atraumatic suture material. She washed up as best she could, mentally trying to calm herself so that her hands would become steadier.

When she turned back to the woman, she realized that her eyes were closed and the gun was resting on her hip. She was about to make a move for the door when Jane opened her eyes again and fixed her with a steady gaze. Sighing, wishing that she just had the guts to cut and run, Abby slowly returned to the table, putting on the sterile gloves and draping a windowed green cloth over wound. _At least it looks more like a wound now..._

"So..." she hesitated, picking up the suture material as she started to try and determine what went where. "What was I doing on Banrio?" She didn't want to indulge the woman's fantasy, but she needed something to take her mind away from what she was about to do and she figured that talking would help the woman as well. _It's like a jigsaw puzzle__.__J__ust make sure what you do fits..._

In Jane Shepard's defence, she never moved or flinched when Abby started working, but her voice was tight as she hissed.

"Don't know. You never really told us, claiming that you had just 'awakened' there from your practice. We found no records of you in our world." Her voice trailed off and Abby had to stop was she was doing, her hands trembling. _Stars, what am I doing?!_

"And you just drove me around anyway?" she queried, calming her voice, imagining that she was working with a frightened animal. "That sounds like bad fan fiction."

The term seemed to be lost on Jane as she took a steadying breath, her eyes turning up to the ceiling. Abby could now see that she was in pain, but then the woman steeled her features and continued.

"You had some endearing qualities," she said. "And you had nowhere else to go in the beginning. We had the room."

Abby was silent for a while as she worked, carefully and methodically, putting in suture after suture.

"I don't believe you," she said finally. "Your world is not real, Commander Shepard. It's a game. One I believe you played; one I've played. I was never on this planet called Banrio. I am a vet. That's all. You have to see this. What you believe is not real." She hesitated and sighed. "It would be nice if it was, but it isn't."

The woman closed her eyes briefly, but before Abby could reach for the valium, she opened them again and shifted the gun as if reminding her that it was there. Again, Abby found herself wildly wishing that the woman _would_ shoot her. Life would be so much easier...

"I'm real," Jane said with certainty. "And you are, so that is as well. I can't explain what happened, Abby, but how would _you_ explain that I know you if you had never met me before."

The vet paused and gave her a dull look. "You don't know me."

"I do," Jane insisted, her face pale and a thin sheen of sweat clearly visible on her forehead. "I know you've got Huntington's Disease which your father gave you. He committed suicide when you were very young before he was diagnosed. You only discovered this disease was related to his death a couple of years ago."

Abby snorted bitterly and turned her attention back to the wound, finishing up the sutures as best she could. She hated to admit it, but it felt good working like this again, even though she questioned every move that she made. "Everybody knows that," she said. "To some degree or another. My life's hardly a closed book."

"No," Jane agreed. "It probably isn't. But how many people know that you broke up with your partner a couple of months ago, because you felt that you could not give him what he wanted in a relationship. That a relationship with you would be a sentence rather than a companionship."

Her hands jerked so violently suddenly that she pulled too hard on the one suture and dropped the line. Jane flinched, the gun shaking in her grasp. Abby took a quick breath even though she felt the tears that had appeared earlier threaten to reveal themselves. "Damn you," she hissed as she quickly tried to correct the damage that she did. "Damn you... That is..." She closed her eyes and took a moment to find her calm. _Other people panicked, you do not have the luxury..._

_This isn't panic, this is fury!_

"That's..." Abby opened her eyes again. "That's hardly a leap. Again, my life's generally an open book." Dare she threaten a woman with a gun? "That's none of your fucking business anyway."

The lines around Jane's eyes were tight as she stared at Abby and she could tell that it took a lot of effort from the woman to keep her voice steady.

"Maybe," she said. "But, how many people know that you actually wished that he would fight for you when you left him? That his departure, for all its turmoil had been too quick, too easy? That he made you feel as if you weren't worth fighting for? That you had truly become unworthy of life?"

She had to let go of what she was doing and steadied herself against the bed as her balance shifted and shook beneath her. Caught off guard by Jane's revelation, faced with feelings she had forced herself to forget, she had to step away from the bed and turn away from the woman's green eyes. The urge to sit down on the floor came and went and it was only her own force of will and that fury that was ever present that kept her upright. Not saying anything, she opened up another packet of surgical gloves, took off the ones she had and went back to the basin to scrub up.

"Abby," Jane said from the bed. "Abby, I'm sorry for bringing this up, but I need you to believe me. I need you to realize that I'm not crazy and I'm not lying to you." There was... something in the woman's voice suddenly. Desperation. Fear. It would've touched her, if she hadn't been so damned angry.

Abby took a steadying breath as she turned around again and made her way back to the bed. She put on the gloves and wordlessly worked for a few minutes before she looked at her patient's features. "You have no right to bring that up," she hissed. "Don't you dare mention it again. I don't know why I'd reveal something like that to you, but it's private. It's mine." She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, forcing herself to calm down. She was almost done.

"What else did I tell you?"

Jane breathed a sigh of relief and for a moment Abby thought that she had passed out. But then, without opening her eyes, she smiled slightly. "You told me of the Mastiff incident," she pointed out. "Of how you and your brother used to do rabbiting, as you called it, on farmers' land. That your family was poor, travelling from English county to English county. That your father was a carpenter till before he died. You're currently angry with your family because they feel that you are getting too ill to work." She opened her eyes again, staring past Abby to the crutch against the wall. "You weren't walking with that when we met."

Abby was starting to feel a little bit deflated and finished up, thinking that the wound was most definitively going to leave a scar. A proper surgeon, who's clients didn't have hair to hide his handiwork, would've done a much better job.

"I'm going to close this up," she said, applying Bactriban wound cream to the sutured wound. "If you lick or chew your sutures you are going to get a collar." She started rewrapping the arm, but was surprised when Jane suddenly laughed.

"You said the same thing to Garrus."

Feeling faint, aware that every muscle in her body felt as if it was trembling, Abby finished with the bandages and stepped back so that she could rest against the wall. "Garrus Vakarian?" she queried. "The turian? I stitched him up to?"

Jane smiled and shook her head. "No," she said. "He had mites and was scratching."

"Ah well," Abby said, her head throbbing suddenly. "That's a good enough reason." She closed her eyes and shifted her weight. "Do you have any other injuries, Jane Shepard? Will you put down that gun so that I can look at the rest of you?"

The woman did not look well and Abby glanced at the IV bag, thinking that it was about time to put on another. "Yes," Jane said simply, seemingly to tired suddenly to distrust her intentions. The gun was gone and her hand was resting beside her on the table.

"I... I also think you need to take some x-rays."

Abby straightened up immediately and went back to the table. "Do you think anything's broken?" Her eyes travelled over the woman's clothes and rested suddenly on her knee where she saw a large, third degree burn wound. _She had forgotten about that..._

"There are some things you need to see," Jane whispered, her voice hoarse now. "I have... cybernetic implants. If this... is 2011. You... There wouldn't be..." She trailed off and Abby found her heart skipping a beat.

"Jane," she said. "Jane come on, you have to tell me where else you hurt." When the woman didn't reply, she moved to the other side of the table and took up her uninjured hand, taking her pulse carefully. It was still there, though the woman had clearly slipped into unconsciousness.

Abby stood back from the table and allowed herself to sink to her knees for the first time, her head throbbing and her chest tight with anger and pain.

_What do I do now?_ She thought as she stared at the unconscious woman. _What the hell do I do now?_

_The End of Part 01_


	2. Part 2

_AN: Thank you for the response to this. Reviews are, as always, truly appreciated. I should clarify that currently there is no plans to pull Samara into this story. A lot of the dialogue however centres around a hint that Shepard and Samara had been a couple. _

**Part 2 **- _"People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that's bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they're afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they're wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It's all in how you carry it. That's what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you're letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain."  
_JIM MORRISON

**Sitting in the middle of the room, staring at her sleeping patient****,**** Abby was beginning to suspect that she was panicking.**

And insane.

She hadn't told anybody the things this Jane Shepard revealed. She would never admit how little self-worth she had left. If she did, people would know that she was planning suicide...

Looking at the crutch near the basin, Abby closed her eyes and carefully pushed herself up, realizing that she had just contaminated another set of gloves. She took them off and stumbled to the crutch, clinging to it like a life line when she finally used it to stabilize herself. When she turned back to the bed, Shepard was still unconscious, her breathing far too quick. Abby considered to rig some oxygen for her, but didn't know how with the equipment she had available. She had to admire the woman, the amount of pain that she must've been in had to be excruciating. Yet she never really flinched, never complained or reacted. It was how she imagined the commander would be.

Strong, focused.

_This can't be real._

She opened a new bag of ringers and replaced the now empty drip, this time setting it to a more controlled flow. After some consideration, she also attached a bag of voluven. Patients lost massive amounts of blood protein through burn wounds and this medicine helped to replace it. Jane had said that she didn't require anything for pain, but now that she was unconscious Abby drew up a low dose of morphine and also injected it into the line. Worried that she might wake up, the vet hesitated, looking at the woman's pale features.

"That'll make you more comfortable," she whispered. "You should've let me give you some from the beginning. Might still be conscious then." For all her anger, the silence suddenly bothered her and she compensated for it by retrieving a clean, old doggy blanket and laying it over the woman.

"You'll have to make do with the quality of linen," she pointed out, more to hear her own voice than to get a response. "I'd apologize, but you insisted on using this medical facility for your immediate treatment." Abby straightened the blankets with shaky hands and stepped away from the bed, running her hands through her hair as she did so. She closed her eyes and tried to make herself go to her office to call the police, but instead she found herself reaching for the gun that still lay on the metal table. She studied it, feeling its light frame yet surprised by how decent it was made. Her hand started trembling as she positioned it in her palm and aimed it at the wall. For a moment she considered pulling the trigger, but after some consideration went to the window instead. She opened it and aimed outside in the bedding below. Not really expecting anything she fired and was immediately surprised by the recoil and startled by the sound.

"Bloody hell," Abby whispered and drew the weapon back, quickly closing the window. _What a great way to find out how good neighbourhood watch was..._

The gun was most certainly real.

She grimaced and looked around her, not wanting to have anything to do with the weapon anymore. She went back to her consultation room and put the gun on top of the cabinet. She hoped that her neighbours would think the sound thunder. The weather was certainly odd enough.

_I should call the police._

Instead, she went back to the basin and washed her hands again, moving back to the bed when she was done.

The burn wound screamed at her to be treated, but she took a steadying breath and rather focused on inspecting the rest of Jane's person, making sure that there weren't any other surprises waiting for her. Abby clumsily removed most of the woman's clothes, her hands shaking and fumbling through most of it. The woman's body told of a severe beating though she could see no more severe lacerations on her chest. When she turned Jane over however, she found what looked like a gunshot wound in her upper thigh. It had stopped bleeding a while ago, but now that she started to inspect it she was rewarded by a fresh stream of blood.

Abby couldn't quite place what she felt as she looked at it. A part of her knew that this was her moment of choice. She could leave it for the paramedics if she called the police or she could continue to fix the woman up herself. To the best of her abilities anyway.

"Well," the vet breathed. "You've come this far. And the woman still has secrets." She glanced up at the stranger's motionless face. "And a third-degree burn wound so really, that penicillin's got its work cut out for it." She glanced at Tammy who was still sitting in the corner, watching her. "I think I've bitten off a bit more than I can chew."

Using the still open surgical pack, Abby quickly donned some gloves and explored the wound tract with tweezers to locate and extract the bullet. To her relief it seemed to have missed the femur and most of the major structures in the leg. She dumped the fragment unceremoniously on the table next to her, vaguely thinking that it probably wasn't correct procedure according to CSI. _And for all I know Grissom will come through that bloody door at any moment to tell me so, if this woman is to be believed about her origins. _

Not thinking about it too much, Abby once again used the saline to clean the wound then sutured it shut. Her stitches were clumsier this time, but she had long since figured that this _Commander_ Jane Shepard wouldn't care. The stranger had scars all over her person, a particularly big one just above her collar bone. Looking at it made Abby feel cold, though she couldn't explain why. After she strapped the wound properly, she finally turned her attention to the burn wound.

Abby grimaced as she saw that some of the fabric of Jane's clothes had melted into the burn. It still smelled faintly of charred meat but not nearly as strong as it had before she brought her inside. She was grateful that Shepard was unconscious because she knew that it would've hurt like hell to remove all of the foreign material. When Abby was satisfied that the wound was clean, she put some hydrophilm over it and secured it with a crepe bandage.

Satisfied that the most urgent wounds were finally dealt with, she turned her attention to Jane's head wound. Again she carefully cleaned the laceration, which had dried in the time it took her to do the other wounds, and shaved away some hair so that she could put some sutures in. She had done this automatically and only thought that the woman might object to having a bold patch when she was done.

"Well," Abby intoned again. "It works for my other patients and, again, you insisted." She sighed as she took another doggy blanket. After folding it a couple of times she carefully lifted Jane's head and slipped it underneath to act as a pillow.

Standing back to admire her handiwork, Abby couldn't believe that she was done. She glanced at the clock and realized that it had been three hours since the woman literally fell into her life. It was late, past one o'clock in the morning, and she was overcome by a sense of exhaustion that once again made her sit down on the ground. This time Tammy came to her, the sheepdog worming her way onto her lap and pressing her body against Abby's. The vet embraced the dog and clung to her as her body trembled from exhaustion and spent adrenaline.

"What now?" She whispered to the dog. "What do I do now?"

It was routine that saved her and forced her to action. Abby pushed herself up when her body stopped trembling and started cleaning up everything that she had used, with Tammy calmly following her. She remembered the blood in the hall and went to clean it up when she finished with the consulting room. She went to check up on the generator and was pleased that the rain had lessened a little, though it was becoming bitterly cold. Then she collected all of the woman's things and took it to her car. She also took some medication because she knew in hear heat that she was going to have to take Jane Shepard home. By the time that she was done with everything, another hour had passed and she began to seriously feel the effects of her long day.

"If you sprout any other magical injuries, I'm afraid you'll have to go somewhere else," Abby whispered as she returned to the surgery and checked the woman's pulse again. "This vet is done for the day." Jane didn't look any better, but Abby consoled herself by thinking that she didn't look any worse either. Not satisfied, but knowing that there was nothing else that she could do, she went to her office and dug out a packet of aspirin, swallowing three. She sat down behind her desk for a moment, pressing her palms against her temples and her dead computer was the worst thing she had to worry about. Looking at her office phone she told herself to dial the police, but the woman's revelation and the strange gun stayed her hand.

_Take x-rays_, Shepard had commanded her. _I have cybernetic implants._

_Implants?_ Abby thought, but pushed herself away from her desk. If she remembered correctly, Commander Shepard had been practically reconstructed by the Cerberus. If the woman was telling the truth, she'd see evidence of it. If she wasn't, then she'd call the police.

It was a simple litmus test.

Resolved to prove this strange situation a lie, Abby moved back to the consultation room, realizing suddenly that Tammy, instead of following her to her office, had gone back to the corner where she could watch Shepard.

_I should stop thinking of her that way,_ she thought as she went to the other room to get their portable x-ray machine. _I'll prove the lie now and get her to the proper authorities. I'm sure: __"__She made me do it. With a gun." Will stand up in court when they try to sue me. Or take away my license._ An edge of bitterness crawled over her.

_My family would be pleased if they manage that, then I'll have to retire._

The thought sobered her and she went about setting up the x-ray solemnly. Usually they were able to capture the set to computer but because the whole system was still down she would have to wait for it to develop the old fashioned way. Abby spent some thought as to where she should use it and decided to take an x-ray of Jane's chest to see whether she had any broken ribs. Not that she could do anything for that. With her luck, Abby wouldn't have been surprised if the woman had a punctured lung.

_Why aren't you calling the police?_

She couldn't answer herself, but set towards taking the x-rays hoping against all hope that the woman was about to proven mad and wrong.

_Yet, would it be such a terrible thing__?_ Abby thought as she carried over the leaded vests to protect the rest of Jane's body from the process. _Would it be so bad to find that the world, in which I had found solace, was real?_

* * *

**The x-ray was lit up like a Christmas tree.**

Abby felt a touch of nausea as she stared at what could only be numerous metal plates distributed all over the woman's chest and bones. There were objects in there she didn't even recognize. _Cybernetic implants... No... It can't be._ She suddenly felt like crying, but couldn't exactly pinpoint why. _This can't be Jane Shepard._

But it had to be. It was either that or a very good hoax.

Leaning heavily on her crutch for support, Abby moved back to the bed and found herself staring at the woman, at her gaunt features and stark red hair. She thought of Miranda that Jane had mentioned repeatedly, the crew of the Normandy and of what it might be like to live in that world. A thought struck her and it made her feel even worse.

_There's probably a cure for me there..._

There was so much that she wanted to ask the woman suddenly and she made to try and wake her up, but hesitated. _She needs rest,_ Abby thought. _Or rather, she needs a doctor__,__ but I can't take her to hospital._ Her blood ran cold. _And I can't keep her here. I have to move her._ She glanced at the clock and realized that it was already past two thirty in the morning. If she wanted to move Shepard, she had to do it before four because then less people would notice.

_Thinking like a gangster there__,__ Dr Gable._She laughed at herself, but didn't feel particularly happy. _I'll give her an hour, then I'll try and wake her._ _And hopefully succeed._ The aspirins hadn't done anything for her headache. She went to get a pair of clean, surgical scrubs and carefully dressed Jane to the best of her ability. Then, exhausted, she took a blanket from her now dwindling supply and sank down on the floor beside Tammy. Wrapping it over her shoulders for warmth and comfort, Abby looked at the clock and waited.

* * *

"**Samara, Samara please don't leave...****Please..."**

The voice dragged her out of what had been a dead sleep and pulled her back into a reality she had no idea how to face. Abby was awake in seconds, her mind reeling as she cursed herself for falling asleep. Her body was not so responsive and, when she tried to get up and go to the table, her legs folded under her and she nearly fell on her face.

"Damn reflexes," she muttered as she fumbled around for her crutch. "Damn Huntington's. Damn life!"

"Samara," Shepard whispered again. "Please."

Abby managed to finally get herself up after taking a careful breath and orientating herself. It was all it took sometimes, a moment to breathe and retake control of her body. But it was a moment she hated because had neer needed it when she was healthy. _Healthy?_ She thought bitterly as she limped to the table, her legs deadened and unresponsive. _I was a time bomb._ Reaching the bed, she grabbed the firmer surface and steadied herself. Shepard hadn't sat up, but her face was contracted in pain as she squirmed on the table.

"Samara, please..."

Abby quickly reached out and pushed down the woman's shoulder.

"Easy, Commander," the vet said quickly, her voice soothing. "It's alright, love, you're a good dog, just settle..." She blushed the moment she said it, reminding herself that her patient was not of the canine variety. "It's okay."

_Is it? She sounds heart broken._

Shepard opened her eyes, her gaze unfocused as she looked first at the IV above her head and then at Abby. The vet felt something against her hip and realized that Jane had clutched her jacket with her uninjured hand. "It's okay," she said again. "You're safe."

Jane looked at her, blinking dazed. Then she closed her eyes and shook her head slightly. "You gave me something." It sounded every inch like an accusation. Blushing, Abby nodded and looked to see whether Shepard had accidentally pulled out the IV line and checked up on the bag of ringers.

"Morphine," she said. "You were passed out anyway. You'll feel a bit..." She shrugged and made a gesture next to her head. "It will wear off. I didn't call anybody while you were out. I could've but..."

Shepard looked at her and seemed to relax a little. "You believe me."

Abby snorted and shook her head. "I'm not going to be that bold," she said and hesitated. "I did take an x-ray and... there were some significant anomalies on them." She sniffed and frowned. "And I fired your gun. _That's_ real."

The commander didn't respond and started to drift off again. Abby quickly took her by the shoulder and shook it. "Commander, you have to stay awake," she pointed out. "I'm going to have to move you. We can't stay here. My partner will come to open the clinic in..." She paused and glanced at the wall clock which read three thirty. She couldn't have slept for more than an hour and her body knew it. "Four hours. I have to take you home."

Jane looked at her groggily and nodded slowly. "Should I get up?" she queried to which Abby nodded.

"Yes," she said. "You're going to have to walk."

To her surprise, the commander smiled, dazed. "I'll fly, if you get me out of here," she whispered making it sound more like a quote than a statement. Abby snorted and carefully helped Jane sit up, glancing at the ringer and volvulen bags as she did so. She had to deal with those.

"You don't have to fly, just walk... Careful..." Jane winched as she sat up, clearly trying to get off of the patch where Abby had dug out the bullet. "You were shot and you have a pretty severe burn on your leg. I did my best."

Jane swayed precariously and for a moment Abby was afraid that she was going to pass out again. But then she felt the commander take a breath and steady herself. "I have no doubt, Abby," she said softly. "Thank you for everything."

Abby chuckled bitterly and guided Shepard off of the bed, happy that she had remembered to put her car keys in her pocket. When the commander stood up, she flinched again, but didn't say anything as Abby reached up and grabbed the two bags from the chain.

"You'll have to hold onto me," she said. "I have to keep these elevated and I won't be able to steady us without my crutch. There, put this arm around my shoulder..." She positioned the woman in a way that was moderately comfortable and slowly started walking forward with her, giving Jane enough time to find her balance and position on her injured leg. Both of them were concentrating so hard to remain upright that they hardly said anything until she managed to get Jane into the car. Trembling, Abby stopped the flow on both the lines and put the bags on the dashboard of her Subaru. She opened the back for Tammy and let the sheepdog jump onto the back seat.

"I'll be back in a moment," she told the still silent Jane Shepard. "I just have to lock up. You can rest again, I… I live on a common just outside of town." By the look of it, Jane had already drifted into unconsciousness again, the effort moving to the car having drained her. Abby left her and limped back into the clinic, shutting down the generator and locking up everything that she needed to. The power had not yet come back on, but there was nothing she could do about it or the trouble that it would cause in the clinic. She was beyond worry about anything other than the woman in her car.

Returning, Abby was relieved to find that Jane's eyes were open and the woman braced herself against the dashboard as she got in and pulled out of the driveway. The silence felt awkward as she tried to shift the car into gear. She kept getting it wrong and her leg trembled on the clutch. She had begun playing with the idea of getting an automatic car, but honestly didn't want to concede to that weakness.

_Not yet, not yet, not yet…_

_There we go, finally. Moving._

They drove off into the dark, the void of sound stretching between them. Unable to handle it, but telling herself that it was to ensure that Jane didn't pass out, Abby tried to think of a decent conversation. None came to mind but the woman's whispered words stayed with her.

"So," Abby began slowly as she looked around the old welsh town. It was strange to realize that only the block on which her clinic was had no power. _Am I imagining all of this?_ "In your… world. Has Samara left the Normandy?"

Jane positively cringed, an emotion she didn't think that commander would've shown had she been in her full senses. "It's complicated," the woman whispered, a sentence which immediately tickled Abby.

"More complicated than the reapers coming to destroy the whole galaxy?" She queried and was glad when she finally pulled out of town. _No one to witness my madness._

Jane frowned and swallowed, giving her a curious look. "You know a lot of my world; of the people there."

Abby sighed and shrugged. "You know a lot about me," she pointed out, not taking her eyes from the road. "I told you. It's a game. I'll show it to you. You're supposed to be a fictional character…" She hesitated and blushed, not saying anything, but Jane immediately picked up on her pause.

"You're not convinced that I'm not," the commander added. "You didn't call the police but... you doubt yourself."

The road felt a little bit darker when Abby found herself shrugging again. "This disease can make me mad," she said simply. "I'm always wondering whether I'll just… become forgetful or actually start hallucinating. It's different for everybody." She didn't want to know the answer, but she found herself asking anyway. "Is there a cure in your world? For me? Am I at least… functional there?"

Jane gave her a tired look and settled back into the chair a little. "You're not mad, Abigail," she said softly. "You're infuriating sometimes, but not mad. And you're pretty functional in this world." She opened her eyes to give the vet a look of admiration that Abby didn't feel she deserve. The look soon passed and faded to hesitation. "There... are no medical cures in my world Abby. Your disease disappeared in the early 2100's. You're the first case my medical team has encountered."

Abby sighed miserably, though felt strangely relieved. She didn't know whether she could live with herself any longer if she knew that she could be cured somewhere else. They travelled in silence for the rest of the trip, with Abby too tired to think of anything else to say and Jane clearly concentrating just to remain conscious. They passed through the small village and then up the road, past the old school house, to the village common. The car startled a badger which had been busy working on its set. Abby had no problem with them, but she knew that some of the folks she shared the common with would be up and arms when they found it. It made her feel miserable and disheartened when she got out of the Subaru to open the gate and drive in. Her mum lived in the cottage by the gate and she half expected her to come out and see why Abby had taken so long to come in. She waited for her sometimes, because parents never stopped caring about their children regardless of their age. But the woman was probably sleeping and had better things to do with her time than wait past midnight for her ailing daughter to return. When Abby got out again, she stumbled and fell down in the dirt road. It made Jane sit up and say her name, but Abby waved her off and grudgingly pulled herself up against the car.

"Happens," she said into the car. "A lot."

She took care to take the crutch out this time and hobbled to the gate, closing it diffidently and moving back to the car.

"My gate's open," she said. "My cottage's tucked in the corner. I... apologize for the state it's in. I wasn't expecting guests."

Jane's eyes travelled down the line of small dark buildings and the gray shapes of sheep that lay on some of the open driveways.

"Is it a farm?" She queried with a touch of wonder to which Abby shook her head.

"No more than 12 acres," she said. "I've got apple trees and... Well. Grazing. The idea was to open a rehabilitation centre here at some point, but we never got round to it. Now I just rent out the land, make hay to sell. Didn't even do that this year."

Jane's gaze found hers in the dark as they pulled into the open gate, chasing off a couple of older lambs who had been sleeping in the driveway. Tammy sat up, whining with excitement and, when Abby pulled the car to a stop in front of her back door, she got out and opened up the passenger side for the dog.

"Get them out," she said in a stern, commanding voice. "Out Tammy."

The border collie, limping slightly in her run, went about the yard chasing out a few more errant sheep who had thought to sleep in her barn and near the old apple store. When the dog had rounded all of them up and out of the gate, Abby praised her and closed the gate between the common land and her yard.

"My neighbour's sheep," she said exasperated. "Old Errol's the only one using the common these days. Them and then Maggie's pony..." She trailed off and went to Shepard's side. "Ready?"

"You have a good dog," was all Jane said as she hoisted herself out of the car. "Well trained."

Abby smiled slightly as she took the IV bags from the dashboard and helped Jane inside the house. "Can't take credit for that," she said as the dog came in behind them, looking pleased with herself. "She was a working dog before I got her. Can't do much work now, but she's good for a run around the yard. I'm..." She hesitated, not sure what to do with Shepard. "I'm gonna put you up in my room. I put clean linen on over the weekend. The spare bedroom's not made. Would... that be a problem?"

Jane, winching every time she stepped onto her leg, shook her head. "Not at all," she intoned, her voice strained. "Thank you, Abby."

The vet said nothing more, but slowly took Jane to her room where she helped the woman lie down on her made bed. She then went to get a coat rack which she could use to suspend the bags. She struggled to pick it up, letting the old wooden frame slip from her hands twice before she reached the room.

_Can't do much work now,_ she thought bitterly as she helped Jane get comfortable, checking the woman's pulse as a way of comfort and adjusting the IV flows. _But she's good for a run around the yard._

"I think you should get some sleep," she said softly when she was done and leaning heavily on her crutch. "I'll be close by."

Jane didn't bother opening her eyes, but reached out and took Abby's hand with her own uninjured one. "I think you should get some rest too," the commander said softly. "You've had a long evening. I'm sorry I threatened you, Abby."

Not knowing how to accept the apology, the vet shrugged lightly and turned to leave the room. "We have to get our thrills somehow I guess," she said dryly. "I'll be close. I promise." Tammy had come into the room and had gone to lie down on the blanket Abby kept for her next to the bed. The dog seemed to be comfortable with the world again and Abby envied her for that.

"Good night, Jane Shepard," she said as an afterthought as she left the room. "I'll see you when you wake up."

She didn't close the door behind her, but left it open as she went to the kitchen and sat down at the table, dropping her head to her hands as she did so. She still had a headache and knew that nothing that she could drink now would fix it. Feeling bitter and unsettled, Abby stood up again restlessly and went to the lounge where she had an extra pillow and blanket. Not knowing what else to do, feeling that she needed to be close to Jane to make sure that nothing happened to her, she took the bedding to her room and lay down at the foot of the bed. For all the discomfort of the floor, she was asleep in seconds.

_To Be Continued..._


End file.
